How Do HVAC Preventative Maintenance Plans Affect Budget?

You know that preventative maintenance plans are important, but the bottom line is, will a PMP save you money?

One common objection to HVAC preventative maintenance plans is the cost; a lot of times, facilities directors feel that they can’t afford to take maintenance staff away from day-to-day maintenance requests. But this kind of thinking can be detrimental to not only the maintenance budget, but the health of the systems themselves. Far from creating budget and time management problems, preventative maintenance plans actually help promote budget stabilization and make it easier to plan for equipment upgrades and replacements.

If your HVAC systems are not properly maintained, you can expect them to cost 3-4 times more over their lifetime than a preventative maintenance plan would cost. Not only will your systems themselves be more expensive due to repairs and corrective maintenance, but your energy costs will also rise—the more a system struggles with dirty filters or unlubricated parts, the more energy it will use.

A study conducted of over 4,850 educational institutions who allocated more than 30% of maintenance resources to PM work showed some pretty strong financial results in favor of PMPs. These schools were found to have a 50-65% reduction in emergency work with their average work order cost being reduced by 28-39%.

According to maintenance best practices outlined by FacilitiesNet, 30% of maintenance work should be preventative maintenance. So doesn’t it also follow that 30% of your maintenance budget should be devoted to PM, whether that means hiring an experienced HVAC company or using your own internal staff?

Preventative maintenance is not just important for extending the life of your HVAC equipment. It’s an important part of the maintenance budget planning process that should always be taken into account.